A Taste for Nightshade

by Martine Bailey

  Boldly, I spoke up. ‘And if such notorious felons were to be apprehended here in England?’

  He raised his grey eyebrows and I blushed.

  ‘It is only a theoretical question. What would the consequence be?’

  ‘This time no appeal or reprieve would be possible. The death penalty would stand. Such degenerates need to be extinguished. Britain would be well rid of such a wretch.’

  ∗ ∗ ∗

  After our meeting my friend led me to the tavern on the corner, where we drank some strong spirits. I was despondent. ‘I don’t know what I’m looking for,’ I said. My ten-shilling fee to the lawyer seemed only to have gained Michael great praise – and Peg even greater condemnation.

  ‘It will do no harm to see the jailer’s book now we are here,’ the captain replied. ‘I know Mary Jebb and her type.’

  His manner annoyed me. ‘Captain, it is my husband we are pursuing. Whatever you menfolk think of Mary Jebb, I believe she is a wronged woman. Women of her class are generally persecuted. She has already suffered brutal punishment.’

  ‘That’s what she told you, is it?’ my friend said lightly.

  ‘A woman’s lot is hard, Captain. Yes, she told me she fell among thieves when a young woman. An orphan, too. Yet my religion says that any soul can be redeemed. It is hard for a man to understand, I suppose, but we grew friendly. She was my ally against Michael. That woman saved my life.’

  He nodded, slowly; but I hoped his benign expression was not the well-meaning pity it appeared to be. We dined after that, lingering pleasantly over roast fowl and peas. The captain lit his pipe, and I dallied over a pot of tea.

  ‘Tell me, dear, does your husband admire your skill in painting?’ The old fellow blew a smoke ring that drifted up to the blackened ceiling.

  ‘Michael?’ I remembered his looking at my pictures only to scoff at me.

  ‘No.’

  ‘Why ever not?’

  I was in the habit of speaking very truthfully to the captain; I pressed my fingers to my brow and examined his question. ‘I believe he does not especially care for other people’s accomplishments.’

  ‘Oh,’ the old fellow replied, tamping down more tobacco into his pipe. ‘Now why would that be?’

  I felt a frown crease my brow. A whole cavalcade of justifications for Michael sprang up in my mind – that he suffered from melancholia, that his parents had not cared for him, that he had been mistreated at school. There were excuses aplenty – but none of them would satisfy a wise old bird like the captain.

  ‘Because,’ I said, not knowing at all what my next words would be … then, suddenly, the phrase bubbled up from nowhere, like a spring rising from the earth. ‘Because now I am no longer with him, I believe he can feel no natural connection with any other soul.’ The words resonated in the air, chiming with truth, causing a peculiar shift around me. For a moment my breath caught in my throat and I wondered if I would burst into tears – but instead, I burst out laughing. ‘That is quite miraculous,’ I said. ‘That I finally see it, as clear as day.’

  The captain leaned back in his chair and stroked his whiskers. ‘When you are young, as you are, my dear, it is easy to dress unworthy characters in grand costumes – to believe them to be noble, charming, or deserving of your self-sacrifice. An old fellow like me has a sharper eye. I judge a person upon their actions, and the actions of that most sensitive organ, the human heart. There is a great deal of flim-flam in the world, and the trick is to see through it.’ He leaned forward and fixed me with his bird-like eyes, shining from within a web of wrinkles. ‘You deserve better than that, Grace. A good soul like you deserves to be cherished by a man who respects and loves you.’

  The smile left my lips as he spoke. ‘That is difficult,’ I said very quietly.

  ‘I understand. But overcoming difficulties is the price of growing up, my dear. Now what about supping up and putting a brave face upon this visit to Newgate? After all, we might still be home by five o’clock for tea; for they cannot imprison us without a warrant.’

  Thus fortified, we crossed the way to Newgate prison; a most oppressive mass of stone, rising above us like a tomb of lost souls. The captain knew the means of entry – namely, to bribe the keeper with another crown. From the moment I passed beneath the Newgate arch, my skin began to itch, and I gagged on the stench; not just of unwashed bodies, but a putrid taint like a long abandoned charnel pit.

  We entered a mean sort of office, where an oaf in greasy leather grinned at me with a broken mouth. ‘I am from the Lichfield Street Justice’s office,’ said my friend, in his most commanding voice. ‘I am instituting an inquiry on behalf of this young woman, and I need to see your Visitors’ Book for the years 1787 and 1788.’

  ‘What a damned shame – them books being put away some while ago, the Devil knows where.’

  ‘Come along, my man, I am sure they can be found.’ As the captain said this, he slipped another half-crown across the filthy board.

  The man took it and hid it in his clothes. ‘That’ll get you a sight of the book itself, but if you be wanting, let’s say, ten minutes of study, then you’s’ll be needing one of me private rooms as well.’

  ‘Another half-crown is my limit,’ muttered the captain.

  ‘Great deal of trouble, all this.’ The jailer yawned, and the gust from his mouth made me shrink back. This time I produced the half-crown. The hateful man leered at me, then waddled off with the coin.

  ‘Nearly there,’ said my friend, with a wry smile of encouragement. Alone with the captain, I covered my mouth and nose with my hand and shook my head mutely.

  We carried the books to a grubby cell-like room, inside of which was much lewd graffiti, and a great many dubious stains that might have been ancient vomit or blood. I could scarcely breathe, so vile was the miasma of misery.

  The captain began turning the pages, passing a finger along each line. We soon learned that Mary Jebb had indeed lived in Newgate for two months in 1787. However, she had not been housed on the common side, but on the master’s side, in quarters of considerable luxury. Food had been ordered for her, along with bedcoverings and spirits. ‘Who paid for all this?’ I asked.

  ‘Well, let’s begin with the visitors. Here’s one, Humbug Joe. Your guess is as good as mine, but he certainly sounds like one of the thieving fraternity. Ah – here is Charles Trebizond.’

  ‘Who is he?’

  ‘A quite infamous screeve-faker – or, shall we say, false-letter man of Manchester town. A flash cove, a head of a family of thieves. And here he is, your Mr M Croxon. It always astonishes me how free folk are with their names.’ With his bony finger, he traced the dates down the page. ‘A series of visits. One, two – five in all. And here, see the column: Night, Night, Night. He paid the “garnish”, or fee, to use a private cell.’

  I felt hot and defensive. ‘I don’t believe it. Perhaps someone else used his name? Michael would never have spent the night with Peg. He loathes her. And even if there was some – irregularity – which I cannot believe, why would he first have sent her to the gallows?’

  ‘Only they know that,’ he said. ‘Perhaps they quarrelled?’

  ‘It’s nonsense.’

  But even as I protested, my friend was copying down all the facts from that incriminating visitors’ book. There it stood in black and white. I could not deny that my elegant, fastidious husband had journeyed here to this stinking hell, bribed the jailer, and paid for the rent of a verminous cell, to spend the night with my seemingly devoted housekeeper.

  Soon afterwards, a letter arrived from Peg. I opened it with some trepidation, for my former ally had, it must be said, suffered a violent plummet in my opinion since I had met the lawyer. She was undoubtedly an habitual felon, the records proved it. Her words echoed in my mind, that she had feared and loathed Michael – why, she had even talked of the pleasure of seeing him dead. ‘Give him a dose of his own medicine,’ she had said coldly. ‘He deserves it.’

  The more I
thought of it, the more I knew the true reason I had let her harry and hustle me from my own home. Horror at the scene in the dining room had certainly been a part of it, but how could that overwhelm my duty to care for Michael as he lay dying? No, I think I guessed even then that it was she, and not Michael, who was capable of murder. I thanked God she had not been successful. My thoughts went around and around: had Peg put ratsbane in the water and given it to Michael, then set me up, like a dupe, to take the blame? But then why did she help me escape? Why then let him live? It was incomprehensible.

  It was in this mood that I read with extraordinary relief:

  My Dearest Friend,

  I write to you with heartfelt thanks for your letter, and to let you know how things lie at present. I must tell you I can no longer be doing with nursing the master any more. He is an exceedingly troublesome invalid, and I feel it wrong, mistress, that he who oppressed me so soundly in health should continue to imprison me in sickness. So I have done your bidding, and thanks to your most generous gift, that I never in a thousand years expected, I have left your husband in the care of a decent nurse recommended by Dr Sampson.

  For myself, I am now in a most agreeable position over Halifax way, as Housekeeper to a Mr and Mrs Roper, a respectable family who trade in woollen yarn. So thank you mistress, or friend as I will always remember you, for I now have a good sum laid by, and even more valuable to me, my precious liberty. As for your husband, when I left him he was no better cured in body, and still exceeding vengeful in mind towards you. And so, if you will forgive my saying so, we are both best rid of him, most especially you. For you are a better sort altogether than him and should forget this sorry episode and find yourself better companions and a more suitable station in life than as that rascal’s wife.

  Sending you again every good wish from your,

  Affectionate Friend and Servant,

  Peg Blissett

  I welcomed the news that Peg had left Delafosse, for it put my frantic mind to rest. And being welcome news, it was easier to believe it was the truth, than subject it to long questioning. Perhaps there was also a tiny part of me that was jealous of whatever Mary Jebb and my husband had once shared in that vile cell, and I was happy to see them parted. But the better part of me was glad that she had escaped and would never be hung from the gallows. Indeed, I was so delighted to see the end of the whole episode that I ceremoniously burned the letter in my grate. So long as I never heard of Peg and her troubled history again, I wished her grudging good luck in her new life of modest labour and precious liberty.

  The summer months passed in gentle walks and outings. I learned to cook a little, for Mrs Huckle’s dinners disagreed with me. I purchased an iron fire dog, and, with the captain’s help, started cooking on my fire. I searched out the cleanest meats, vegetables, bright-eyed fish, and country bread, in preference to the chalky white loaves and rancid butters of London. The captain taught me his own way of making a nourishing dish that his wife had made in former days to feed the poor – layered vegetables and meat braised to a delicious solidity. Thus I not only saved myself fivepence a day, for my purse was diminishing at a surprising rate, but learned to feed myself on nourishing hotpots and plain hasty puddings.

  While the summer evenings were long, I worked upon infant’s clothes stitched from the cheapest roll-ends. I remembered with shame my condescension to Anne, who had spent all her waking hours sewing. With some grief, I realised that news of her infant’s birth would be sent to Delafosse, where Michael, I imagined, would cast her letters aside unread. A few times I began to write to Anne, but set my pen down again. As I could not explain my behaviour without frightening and worrying her, I reluctantly decided that no news would be better than bad news.

  ∗ ∗ ∗

  I also fretted over the Croxons, wondering what they must make of Michael’s sudden change of health. Curiosity roused me, until one day I set off to find the address at Devonshire Square where I had been invited to stay with Peter. It was a hot hour’s walk from Golden Square, and hard on my feet and aching back. When I did at last find the address, it was a splendid tree-lined square of snow-white buildings, through the windows of which I could glimpse crystal chandeliers and gilded mirrors. I thought number seventeen very much in the Croxons’ showy style.

  Standing below a tree, I watched the front door all morning, trying to evade a stern footman who came out to me and asked me my business. At last a maidservant emerged from the back and I set off after her to the market. Once she was burdened with goods, I fell into step beside her and offered my help.

  ‘Thank you, miss, but I can manage well enough on me own.’ She looked at me with a sidelong glance. ‘You want to be sparing your strength in your condition.’

  ‘Did I not see you leave number seventeen earlier? Could you do me the kindness of telling me if Mr Peter Croxon is still in residence?’

  ‘What, ’im? He’s long gone. That place is but a lodging house for them as comes to London on visits. They only stayed for a month or so, down from the North.’ She gave me another sly glance. ‘So what was you after, then?’

  ‘I know Mr Croxon, we both grew up in the same town.’

  ‘Oh, he were a proper well-made gentleman, weren’t he now?’ She stopped for a moment to set her goods down and give her arms a rest. ‘But then it’s the ’andsome ones what leaves unwelcome gifts, they say.’ This time she jerked her head very pertly towards the swelling of my stomach.

  ‘For goodness’ sake,’ I protested. ‘It’s nothing of the sort. In fact I’m married to his brother.’

  She grinned unpleasantly, a picture of scornful amusement. ‘So you wish you was, my dear. My advice to you, if you know Mr Peter’s address in the country, is for you to apply to him there. He seemed an open-handed sort of fellow.’

  I turned and walked quickly away. It was a harsh lesson, I supposed, in how others would see me, alone and shabby with a child straining at the seams of my cheap bodice. I trudged back to Golden Square, horribly conscious of my fall in rank.

  As I stitched my infant’s linen, I did my best to make a primitive plan of how I might live once the baby was born, should the Almighty allow us both to survive. Much of my land had still been let for grazing, so my annual rents of £300 were due to be paid that summer. I was sure I could live upon that if I was frugal. Once I had settled in a private rented house I would summon the courage to write to Mr Tully about the Marriage Settlement. If I could impress on him the need to keep my whereabouts secret from Michael, I hoped he could arrange whatever allowance was due to me, once we were officially separated.

  Delafosse did often surface in my thoughts. One day, after pricking my finger too many times on my clumsy needle, I got out the thimble I had found in the tunnel, that day I first explored it. It was a cheap bit of ironwork that I fancied had hung from a chain. ‘For Mother from her Jamie’, I read around the rim. Jamie, Jim, Jimmy, I recited to myself. I had heard of no one of that name at Delafosse. James. Was that not the name of Mrs Harper’s son, the apprentice to whom I had posted five pounds to cover his fees? My instinct was to write at once to Bess Doutty in Pontefract, who might still wait for news of her sister. But what, I asked myself, was of such significance? I had found Mrs Harper’s thimble dropped on the floor at her former workplace. It was of no consequence at all.

  It became impossible to keep my condition hidden from Mrs Huckle.

  ‘This is a most genteel lodging house, Mrs Frankland,’ she protested. ‘We cannot have bawling babies and strings of wet clouts all about the place. You will be more comfortable in a house that is – shall we say, a little less select.’

  But the truth was, I was already eager to move lodgings, for it was ridiculous to live beneath the petty tyranny of such a woman. ‘You may stay one more month at most,’ she said, eyeing the panels hastily sewn into my shabby gown. She held her hand out for the requisite twenty shillings.

  Angrily, I bustled past her. ‘You are indeed correct,’ I snapped. �
��There must be many more comfortable places than this, I’m sure.’

  Once outside in the street, I convinced myself the woman had done me a favour, for it was certainly time to change my situation. Glasshouse Street had served its purpose as a sedate hiding place. It was July, so I determined to withdraw a part of my annual rental allowance. With that money I would buy privacy and safety for myself and the baby. A building mania gripped the capital, and everywhere I saw brick-built houses of the modern style, with sash windows and pillared porticoes of a type that would suit me very well. Taking a hackney to the bank at Fleet Street, I began to anticipate a settled life for myself and my baby here in London.

  Though I had dressed in my only decent cloak and hat, it took some mustering of courage to brave the gold-liveried man at the door of Hoare’s Bank. I spoke briefly to the clerk and was directed to a fierce-looking gentleman who sat at a vast mahogany table. I told him my true name and that I had a bank account operated by a Mr Tully of Lancaster, and that, as my land rents had recently accrued, I wished to withdraw two hundred pounds. The gentleman bowed, absented himself for a few minutes, and then informed me with stiff politeness that as I had no credentials, he would be obliged if I would attend him again one week hence. I was disappointed, but bowed my head and left.

  On my return to the bank a week later I was all eagerness, having found a pretty house with a garden that cost only one hundred pounds per annum. But I had been unable to leave a deposit, since my poor purse by this date carried only copper. I found the same gentleman at the mahogany table, and he in his turn invited me into a magisterial office panelled with dark wood.